Italy: Socialism in Six Acts

Talk about identity crisis! The Socialists have suffered from one practically since birth. Their problem is how to cling to Socialist principles without either being drawn toward Communism or embracing the bourgeois Establishment. Nowhere has the conflict been more tortured than in Italy. There, Socialists are outflanked on the left by the West’s strongest Communist Party, while the center is pre-empted by the dominant Christian Democrats. Ever in search of a role, often quarreling among themselves, the Socialists have contributed greatly to Italy’s protean politics. They have just caused the latest Italian government crisis, and brought down the promising government of Christian Democrat Mariano Rumor.

Shifting Coalition. To see how this came about, it is necessary to pause and contemplate the plot as it has unfolded over the years. It is a commedia dell’ arte script with occasional touches of Machiavelli.

ACT I. In the 1940s, the Socialists under longtime Leader Pietro Nenni participate in the Christian Democratic government. But ideologically, they often cooperate with the Communists. This so enrages the Christian Democrats that they toss Nenni out as Foreign Minister. It so troubles the moderate Socialists that they split off and regroup as the Italian Socialist Workers’ Party and later as the Social Democrats.

ACT II. In the 1950s, Nenni himself finally draws away from the Communists. He helps prepare the way for the famous apertura a sinistra, the Christian Democrats’ opening to the left in which, by 1963, they once more admit the Socialists into the government.

ACT III. To strengthen the center left government and push the social reforms that Italy badly needs, Nenni in 1966 agrees with the Social Democrats to reunite the old Socialist Party factions. It does not turn out to be a profitable reunion. In Italy’s 1968 national elections left-wing voters disenchanted with the center-left government vote for the Communist Party, which picks up nearly 800,000 new votes. The Socialists lose four seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

ACT IV. Trying to recoup some of their losses, left-wing Socialists start making overtures to the Communists again. They are led by Deputy Premier and Party General Secretary Francesco de Martino, a 62-year-old law professor who learned how to tack and test the winds as a yachtsman on the Bay of Naples. He sees to it that far-left factions slowly take control of the party machinery. This infuriates the ex-Social Democrats; their leader, Giuseppe Saragat, has been President of the Republic for four years and is presumably above politics. But others angrily threaten to bolt.

ACT V. Nenni, 78, but wily as ever, works out a compromise to keep the two sides together. According to his plan, the party’s central committee will approve—narrowly—a resolution restating the manifesto that reunited them three years ago: Communists should play no part in the “government process.” Then the committee will approve a resolution by De Martino to study whether the Communists might somehow, some day be brought into the government. But when the committee meets and the no-Communists vote is taken, Nenni is either double-crossed or victimized by misunderstandings. His resolution loses 69-52. “I will not remain in this post even an hour more,” says the stunned Nenni, who thereupon resigns as both party leader and Foreign Minister.

ACT VI. The ex-Social Democrats also leave. Angrily, they regroup as the Unitary Socialist Party. Their representatives in Rumor’s Cabinet resign. Under Italian parliamentary procedure, Rumor has no choice but to resign as well.

That is how the plot went up to week’s end. For Italy, the outcome was a pity. Rumor’s government had begun to make some progress. Bills on pension increases, wage equalization between prosperous North and impoverished South, judicial reform, divorce and education were all moving through Parliament. In recent regional elections, as one result, the Christian Democrats and Socialists gained while the Communist vote fell off.

A New Government. President Saragat’s choice to form a new government, under the circumstances, was Mariano Rumor. But the task may be harder than Rumor’s first attempt at Cabinetmaking last winter, which took 16 days. This time there are more factions to negotiate with. In addition, the ex-Social Democrats, who still have 29 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, last week were refusing to join any coalition that included Nenni Socialists.

One possibility was a monocolore government, or one composed only of Rumor’s Christian Democrats that would govern at the pleasure of all parties. The Christian Democrats oppose such a solution. Party Secretary Flaminio Piccoli last week insisted that “the only road open for the Christian Democrats remains the center-left.”

What Piccoli and the Christian Democrats want is some foul-weather friends. Italy is experiencing a growing domestic unrest, due mostly to the heavy-handed slowness of government bureaucracy. No fewer than 35 labor contracts are up for negotiation this fall, and labor leaders are tough-minded when the government is in trouble. Continuing unrest may necessitate government crackdowns. Under such circumstances, the Christian Democrats would prefer not to be governing alone.

Whether they join the government again or not, Italy’s Socialists face a grim denouement. A coalition of Christian Democrats and left-wing Socialists can probably last only until a substantive and controversial issue is brought up in Parliament. Then, short of votes, the government will fall once more. No one particularly wants a special election, but one may have to be called. If it is, the Socialists undoubtedly will lose even more votes than they lost last year. They have split and reunited too many times to be taken seriously any longer. Automaker Giovanni Agnelli, a shrewd political observer if not a disinterested one as head of the vast Fiat enterprises, calls the latest schism “the death knell of Italian Socialism.” Adds Agnelli: “In the future, the Socialists can only be complementary to a government.” They will still have parliamentary seats, still occupy a place on the stage of Italian politics. But their role like that of the monarchists, for instance, is not likely to be central.